The present invention generally relates to intravascular devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to reinforced intravascular catheters.
Intravascular catheters commonly comprise a polymer shaft having a braid reinforcement embedded therein. The prior art offers a number of different reinforced catheter designs and methods of manufacture, each of which have certain advantages and disadvantages. To address these disadvantages, there is an ongoing need to provide design alternatives for reinforced catheters.
To this end, the present invention provides several reinforced catheter designs and related methods of manufacture. For example, in one embodiment, the present invention provides an intravascular catheter including a reinforcement layer having a plurality of interwoven metal wire members and polymer members. The polymer members are thermally processed to permeate the metal wire members to form a polymeric layer having an orientation which is interwoven with the metal wire members.